"Oh! he is always sincere," says Barbara, quickly; "only people say things about one's children, you know, that——" She stops.
"They are the dearest children. You are a bad mother; you wrong them," says Joyce, laughing lightly, plainly at the idea of Barbara's affection for her children being impugned. "She told me," turning her lovely eyes full on Dysart, with no special expression in them whatever, "that I should find only your remains after spending an hour with them." Her smile was brilliant.
"She was wrong, you see, I am still here," says Felix, hardly knowing what he says in his desire to read her face, which is strictly impassive.
"Yes, still here," says Miss Kavanagh, smiling, always, and apparently meaning nothing at all; yet to Felix, watching her, there seems to be something treacherous in her manner.
"Still here?" Had she hoped he would be gone? Was that the cause of her delay? Had she purposely put off coming home to give him time to grow tired and go away? And yet she is looking at him with a smile!
"I am afraid you had a bad luncheon and a bad time generally," says Mrs. Monkton, quickly, who seemed hurried in every way. "But we came home as soon as ever we could. Didn't we, Joyce?" Her appeal to her sister is suggestive of fear as to the answer, but she need not have been nervous about that.
"We flew!" declares Miss Kavanagh, with delightful zeal. "We thought we should never get here soon enough. Didn't we, Barbara?" There is the very barest, faintest imitation of her sister's voice in this last question; a subtle touch of mockery, so slight, so evanescent as to leave one doubtful as to its ever having existed.
"Yes, yes, indeed," says Barbara, coloring.
"We flew so fast indeed that I am sure you are thoroughly fatigued," says Miss Kavanagh, addressing her. "Why don't you run away now, and take off your bonnet and lay down for an hour or so?"
"But," begins Barbara, and then stops short. What does it all mean? this new departure of her sister's puzzles her. To so deliberately ask for a tête-a-tête with Felix! To what end? The girl's manner, so bright, filled with such a glittering geniality—so unlike the usual listlessness that has characterized it for so long—both confuses and alarms her. Why is she so amiable now? There has been a little difficulty about getting her back at all, quite enough to make Mrs. Monkton shiver for Dysart's reception by her, and here, now, half an hour later, she is beaming upon him and being more than ordinarily civil. What is she going to do?